Letter E

ECOLOGY - The study of interrelationships of animals and plants to one another
and to their environment.

ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY - A term
that refers to the optimal production and consumption of goods and
services. This generally occurs when prices of products and services
reflect their marginal costs. Economic efficiency gains can be achieved
through cost reduction, but it is better to think of the concept as
actions that promote an increase in overall net value (which includes,
but is not limited to, cost reductions).

ECONOMIES OF SALE - Economies of
scale exist where the industry exhibits decreasing average long-run
costs with size.

ECONOMIZER AIR - A ducting arrangement and
automatic control system that allows a heating, ventilation and air conditioning
(HVAC) system to supply up to 100 percent outside air to satisfy cooling demands,
even if additional mechanical cooling is required.

ECONOMIZER WATER - A system which uses
either direct evaporative cooling, or a secondary evaporatively cooled water loop
and cooling coil to satisfy cooling loads, even if additional mechanical cooling is
required.

ECONOMY ENERGY (Electricity utility) - Electricity purchased by one utility from
another to take the place of electricity that would have cost more to produce on the
utility's own system.

ECOSYSTEM - The interacting system of biological
community and its nonliving environment.

EDISON, THOMAS ALVA - The "father" of the American energy industry, Thomas
Edison was an American inventor who was born in 1847 and died in 1931. He
patented a total of 1,093 inventions - more than any other person in American
history. Among the most important were the incandescent electric light bulb (1879),
the phonograph (1877) and the movie projector (1893).

EEI - Edison Electric Institute. An association
of electric companies formed in 1933 "to exchange information on industry
developments and to act as an advocate for utilities on subjects of
national interest."

ELCON - Electricity Consumers Resources
Council. ELCON is an association of 28 large industrial consumers of
electricity. ELCON members account for over five percent of
all electricity consumed in the United States. ELCON was formed in 1976
"to enable member companies to "work cooperatively for the development of
coordinated, rational and consistent policies affecting electric energy
supply and pricing at the federal, state, and local levels."

ELECTRIC UTILITY - Any person or
state agency with a monopoly franchise (including any municipality), which
sells electric energy to end-use customers; this term includes the
Tennessee valley Authority, but does not include other Federal power
marketing agency (from EPAct).

EMBEDDED COSTS EXCEEDING MARKET PRICES (ECEMP) - Embedded costs of
utility investments exceeding market prices are: i) costs incurred
pursuant to a regulatory or contractual obligation; 2) costs that are
reflected in cost-based rates; and 3) cost-based rates that exceed
the price of alternatives in the marketplace. ECEMPS may become
"stranded costs" where they exceed the amount that can be recovered
through the asset's sale. Regulatory questions involve whether such
costs should be recovered by utility shareholders and if so, how they
should be recovered. "Transition costs" are stranded costs which
are charged to utility customers through some type of fee or surcharge
after the assets are sold or separated from the
vertically-integrated utility. "Stranded assets" are assets which
cannot be sold for some reason. The British nuclear plants are an example
of stranded assets which no one would buy. (Also referred to as
Transition Costs.)

ENERGY EFFICIENCY - Using less
energy/electricity to perform the same function. Programs designed to use
electricity more efficiently - doing the same with less. For the
purpose of this paper, energy efficiency is distinguished from DSM
programs in that the latter are utility-sponsored and -financed, while
the former is a broader term not limited to any particular sponsor or
funding source. "Energy conservation" is a term which has also been
used but it has the connotation of doing without in order to save energy
rather than using less energy to do the some thing and so is not used as
much today. Many people use these terms interchangeably.

EPAct - The Energy Policy Act of 1992 addresses
a wide variety of energy issues. The legislation creates a new class of
power generators, exempt wholesale generators (EWGs), that are exempt
from the provisions of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 1935
and grants the authority to FERC to order and condition access by
eligible parties to the interconnected transmission grid.

ESCO - Efficiency Service Company - A company
that offers to reduce a client's electricity consumption with the cost
savings being split with the client.

EXEMPT WHOLESALE GENERATOR (EWG) -
Created under the 1992 National Energy Policy Act,
these wholesale generators are exempt from certain financial and legal
restrictions stipulated in the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of
1935.

EER - (Energy Efficiency Ratio) the ratio of cooling capacity of an air conditioning
unit in Btus per hour to the total electrical input in watts under specified test
conditions. California Code of Regulations, Section 1602(c)(6).

EFFICACY, LIGHTING - The ratio of light from a
lamp to the electrical power consumed, including ballast losses, expressed as lumens
per watt. [See California Code of Regulations, Title 24, Section 2-5302]

EFFICIENCY - The ratio of the useful energy delivered
by
a dynamic system (such as a machine, engine, or motor) to the energy supplied to it
over the same period or cycle of operation. The ratio is usually determined under
specific test conditions.

ELECTRIC GENERATOR - A device that
converts a heat, chemical or mechanical
energy into electricity.

ELECTRIC RESISTANCE HEATER - A
device that produces heat through electric resistance. For example, an electric
current is run through a wire coil with a relatively high electric resistance, thereby
converting the electric energy into heat which can be transferred to the space by
fans.

ELECTRIC RADIANT HEATING - A
heating system in which electric resistance is used to produce heat which radiates to
nearby surfaces. There is no fan component to a radiant heating system.

ELECTRICITY - A property of the basic particles of
matter. A form of energy having magnetic, radiant and chemical effects. Electric
current is created by a flow of charged particles (electrons).

ELECTROLYSIS - Breaking a chemical compound down into its elements by passing
a direct current through it. Electrolysis of water, for example, produces hydrogen and
oxygen.

ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
(EMF) - Ordinary every day use of electricity produces magnetic and electric fields.
These 60 Hertz fields (fields that go back and forth 60 times a second) are associated
with electrical appliances, power lines and wiring in buildings.

ELEMENT - A substance consisting entirely of atoms of the same atomic number.

ELEVATION - 1) The height above sea level (altitude);
2) A geometrical projection, such as a building, on a plane perpendicular to the
horizon.

EMERGENCY CORE COOLING SYSTEM (ECCS) - Equipment designed to cool the
core of a nuclear reactor in the event of a complete loss of the coolant.

EMISSION STANDARD - The maximum amount of a pollutant legally permitted to
be discharged from a single source.

EMISSIVITY - The property of emitting radiation;
possessed by all materials to a varying extent.

EMITTANCE - The emissivity of a material, expressed
as a fraction. Emittance values range from 0.05 for brightly polished metals to 0.96
for flat black paint.

ENERGY - The capacity for doing work. Forms of energy
include: thermal, mechanical, electrical and chemical. Energy may be transformed
from one form into another.

ENERGY BUDGET - A requirement in the
Building Energy Efficiency Standards that a proposed building be designed to
consume no more than a specified number of British thermal units (Btus) per year
per square foot of conditioned floor area.

EER (Energy
Efficiency Ratio) - The ratio of cooling capacity of an air conditioning unit in Btus
per hour to the total electrical input in watts under specified test conditions. [See
California Code of Regulations, Title 20, Section 1602(c)(6)]

ENERGY MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM - A control system (often computerized) designed to regulate the energy
consumption of a building by controlling the operation of energy consuming
systems, such as the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), lighting and
water heating systems.

ENERGY CHARGE - The amount of money owed
by an electric customer for kilowatt-hours consumed.

ENERGY CONSUMPTION - The amount of energy consumed in the form in
which it is acquired by the user. The term excludes electrical generation and
distribution losses.

ENERGY RESERVES - The portion of total energy resources that is known and can be
recovered with presently available technology at an affordable cost.

ENERGY RESOURCES - Everything that could be used by society as a source of
energy.

ENERGY RESOURCES PROGRAM ACCOUNT (ERPA) - The state law that directs
California electric utility companies to gather a state energy surcharge of two-tenths
of one mil ($0.0002) per kilowatt hour of electricity consumed by a customer. These
funds are used for operation of the California Energy Commission.

ENERGY SECURITY/FUEL SECURITY - policy that considers the risk of
dependence on fuel sources located in remote and unstable regions of the world and
the benefits of domestic and diverse fuel sources.

ENTITLEMENT - Electric energy or generating capacity that a utility has a right to
access under power exchange or sales agreements.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (EPA) - A federal agency created in
1970 to permit coordinated governmental action for protection of the environment
by systematic abatement and control of pollution through integration or research,
monitoring, standards setting and enforcement activities.

ENTHALPY - The quantity of heat necessary to raise the
temperature of a substance from one point to a higher temperature. The quantity of
heat includes both latent and sensible.

ESCO - Efficiency Service Company. A company
that offers to reduce a client's electricity consumption with the cost
savings being split with the client.

ETHANOL (also know as Ethyl Alcohol or Grain Alcohol,
CH3CH2OH) - a liquid that is produced chemically from ethylene or biologically
from the fermentation of various sugars from carbohydrates found in agricultural
crops and cellulosic residues from crops or wood. Used in the United States as a
gasoline octane enhancer and oxygenate, it increases octane 2.5 to 3.0 numbers at 10
percent concentration. Ethanol can also be used in higher concentration (E85) in
vehicles optimized for its use.

ETHYL TERTIARY BUTYL ETHER
(ETBE) - an aliphatic ether similar to MTBE. This fuel oxygenate is manufactured by
reacting isobutylene with ethanol. Having high octane and low volatility
characteristics, ETBE can be added to gasoline up to a level of approximately 17
percent by volume. ETBE is used as an oxygenate in some reformulated
gasolines.

ETHYLENE - A colorless gas that burns and is an oil refinery product.

EVAPORATIVE COOLING - Cooling by
exchange of latent heat from water sprays, jets of water, or wetted material.

EXCEPTIONAL METHOD - An approved
alternative calculation method that analyzes designs, materials, or devices that
cannot be adequately modeled using public domain computer programs.
Exceptional methods must be submitted to and approved by the California Energy
Commission. [See California Code of Regulations, Title 20, Section 1409(b)3] Two
examples of exceptional methods are the controlled ventilation crawl space (CVC)
credit and the combined hydronic space and water heating method.

EXECUTIVE ORDER NUMBER 6 - A provision under the California Emergency
Services Act permits the Governor to establish, by Executive Order Number 6, a state
Petroleum Fuels Set-Aside Program after proclamation of an energy emergency.

Exempt Wholesale
Generator(EWG) - Created under the 1992 Energy Policy Act,
these wholesale generators are exempt from certain financial and legal
restrictions stipulated in the Public Utilities Holding Company Act of
1935.

EXFILTRATION - Air flow outward through a wall,
building envelope, etc.

EXHAUST - Air removed deliberately from a space, by a
fan or other means, usually to remove contaminants from a location near their
source.

EXPORTS (Electric utility) - Power capacity or energy that a utility is required by
contract to supply outside of its own service area and not covered by general rate
schedules.

EXTRA HIGH VOLTAGE (EHV) - Voltage levels higher than those normally used on
transmission lines. Generally EHV is considered to be 345,000 volts or higher.

EV (ELECTRIC VEHICLE) - a vehicle powered by electricity,
usually provided by batteries but may also be provided by photovoltaic (solar) cells
or a fuel cell.